Cliff Jumping

So today I went to Tabarca. A small island in the Mediterranean. You know what I did there? I ate a three course meal (free) and went cliff jumping (also free). It was super cool! I felt like i was in a vacation commercial. You know, the Visit Jamaica one. The "Come Visit Jamaica!" one. Only in the Mediterranean. It was a ton of fun - crystal clear water, zero injuries. I wish all of my friends and family from the states could have been there. Here are some pictures of the island.

 On an unrelated note - these are the people i'm learning to sail with. We have the coolest barco in the whole sea.

Day - Unknown

So it's been a while since i wrote one of these. And no, I don't have anymore pictures because i totally suck at remembering to take them. What's happened since last time.

Mostly I got sick. I don't know if I had a fever or not, but I felt like hell. So I got some antibiotics and began taking enough vitamin C that my blood became citrus. Which reminds me of my first success. I managed my first gesture free communication in Spanish! I went in the Pharmacy and asked for Vitamin C - and the got it! No weird looks, no miscommunication. It was pretty spectacular. It was only shadowed by the fact I felt like my sinuses were filled with a Mac truck.

You know how most of the time you never know exactly when you got sick? This time I knew. It was 3:55pm local time in Valencia, Spain. Speaking of which - Valencia was pretty cool. Not worth getting dehydrated and sick over (but hey, stuff happens). We had a walking tour - on which i was reminded why I hate tours. Our tour guide was super into architectural history which in my book is interesting... for about 10 minutes. Then we move on. We don't stay there for ten hours. 

 This is a bridge over what used to be the Valencia River; until they moved it.

 A tree. I liked it.

 Some building - probably a church.

 Doors on a church.

 Another Huge Church.

 A fountain (outside of a church).

 Street View. I love just watching people go about their day. You get a brief insight into 30 or so seconds of a person's life. It's super relaxing.

 Inside of a huge church.

 If you look really hard - this is a preserved hand of some saint. It's a weird relic.

 This is apparently the Cup of Christ. Post Indiana Jones I assume.

The ceiling of a old courthouse

 A kickin' fountain.

 Another street view.

 A lot of people sell faux bags and sunglasses on the street. This guy was peddling DVDs.

 I don't know what this is.

 This is in front of a science center. That gigantic purple thing in the background is Spain's largest aquarium.

 This is another science building but i didn't get to go in.

 Stairs up to the second floor.

 The aquarium! They had a pretty cool dolphin show here.

 You can't tell but water is streaming down the wall on the left.

 Anemones!

 A hermit Crab.

 Dolphin - doing a preshow warm up.

 They had divers at the dolphin show too.

So after we got back we all went to this Medieval Market. It's a weekend every year where all the gypsies c  come from all over to sell food, carvings, armor, necklaces, cheap puzzles (I totally got suckered into buying one), and all other kinds of things. There was also a show with demons and witches and crazy stuff (that i didn't have my camera for..... Dag it.

 Loads of spices and herbs for sale!

 Another People Shot!

 Nuts and Dates!

 This angry looking guy with a huge sword.

  One of these herbs was labelled "For menstruation" I didn't buy any.

 This is my friend Bill. He is thoroughly enjoying his empanada.

 Me. doing the same.

 This is Jesus. He made us mojitos. That's right, not too many people can say Jesus made them mojitos.

 The City hall decorated.

 Bread.

Pig.

But the coolest thing about the medieval mercado was this italian wood carver (no pictures again!). He had this hand driven lathe where he used one hand to drive it and his hands and feet to help carve things. I watched him carve about five of these super cool necklaces and after i brought five or so over to show how crazy amazing this guy was he gave me one! He told me it was for good luck - I hope it works!

So it's a blast here. There are a few things i miss though. I miss having friends with similar interests. I miss having small gatherings of friends to hang out instead of huge bars with a hundred people. I miss speaking the local  lingo. It's hard to make friends if you can't talk to them.

However, things are looking up! I managed to get a conversation going with a local - admittedly he was a butcher and we talked about food..... but it's a step in the right direction.

Good God, I'm tired.

Day 5

There is no way I can learn Espanol fast enough! I can't deal with this not being able to communicate!

Day 4

Day 4

                Wow, today was a day filled to the brim. I still haven’t quite figured out the typical Spanish schedule, but my day was pretty packed. I started out by making it to Universidad de Alicante at 8:45 and took my almost three hour Spanish 1 class. It was brutal. I believe only ten or fifteen words werer spoken in English the whole time and we learned the same amount of stuff in a day that is usually covered in about a week of foreign language class. In short, I loved it! It was a class I had to struggle to keep up in and have to do a lot of studying at home, but I want to learn to communicate so badly that I’ll run through fire if I have to.

                After class, I went to El Mercado – the gigantic fresh produce and meat market. They had more meat than I had ever seen. It was completely crazy. They had whole legs of lamb, sheep’s heads, and something that looked like a skinned prairie dog but was probably a rabbit. They had cuttlefish, squid, shrimp, and hundreds of other things I couldn’t identify. I was so overwhelmed by it that I couldn’t purchase anything on that floor. However, I went downstairs and looked at the produce section and bought groceries for the first time. It was a struggle, but I learned a little bit for next time. Hopefully it will be easier. Check out my first meal at home! Admittedly it is only produce, but it was super cheap and actually filling.

           

  

      A baked potato, some watermelon, cherries, and a fruit I didn’t recognize – but was delicious!

After coming home and studying some I went with my roommates to find an ATM. It took us a solid forty minutes but we got one…. Then it didn’t work. Thinking that the tour of the Santa Barbara Castle was at four thirty, we made our way to the other side of downtown…… and found out it was until six.  Here are some images of downtown.

 That is the castle we walked to later on (a view from the starting point).

 Sorry about this one - my page is all in Spanish i'm still trying to figure out how to rotate stuff.

 This stuff is either soccer graffiti or revolutionary graffiti; we couldn't decide.

 I guess people write whatever on this wall.

 This looks meaningful so i took a picture, but i haven't translated it yet.

 This (above) is a park on the way up to the castle. I want to do kung fu here.

 Views from/of the castle

 One of my roommates and I just decided to walk around the city before we went up to the castle. We didn’t realize until later we would be walking for six hours.

                After some more homework and food the day came to an end. I really hope I can get this speaking Spanish thing down.